Pryor Put Back on Senate Panel to Speed Cranston Case

Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.) was reassigned to the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday as leaders moved to speed up deliberations on whether Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) should be censured.

The Ethics Committee has been under intense criticism for its slow pace, and placing Pryor back on the six-member panel brought it up to full strength. It had been one member short.

Pryor was a member of the committee throughout its lengthy investigation and public hearings into the so-called Keating Five senators, who received $1.3 million in political donations from former savings and loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. But Pryor suffered a heart attack in April and left the panel.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a committee member, became so frustrated with the delays that he issued his own report recommending censure of Cranston.

Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said he named Pryor to expedite deliberations in the case, which formally began as a probe of the five senators in December, 1989.

Pryor was replaced by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who spent months familiarizing himself with the case only to resign because of a conflict of interest.

Bingaman’s wife is a partner in a law firm that represented Cranston aides in the case. Bingaman dropped out of deliberations after learning that Cranston planned to pay outstanding legal bills of several aides who were represented by the firm.

Any senator but Pryor would have to spend several months acquainting himself with a huge volume of hearing records and other documents.

The committee last February questioned the judgment of the four other senators but closed their cases without further action. In Cranston’s case, the committee found evidence that the former assistant majority leader may have violated Senate rules by intentionally linking fund raising and his help for Keating.

The senators had intervened with federal regulators on behalf of Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan, which eventually failed and will cost taxpayers some $2.6 billion in bailout funds.

About $850,000 of the contributions went to three voter registration groups strongly backed by Cranston.

Pryor said: “I resigned from the committee to allow someone else to go ahead and hear the case rather than delay proceedings during my recovery period.

“Now, in light of Sen. Bingaman’s recusal, the best way for me to assure the prompt conclusion of the Cranston case is to return to the committee and spare another member the task of spending two or more months learning the facts of this complicated matter.”